Bay Area children of incarcerated parents receive bikes
Almost two hundred Bay Area children whose parents are incarcerated got brand-new bicycles this holiday season thanks to a group of San Quentin residents who are dedicated to making amends to their communities.
Twelve incarcerated members of the group “SQUIRES” volunteered more than two hundred hours of their “free” time to unload, unpack, and assemble the bicycles and send them back out as gifts for the children.
“I feel really good. Like Santa Claus, putting smiles on kids’ faces,” said Michael Navarro, who arrived at SQ in 2022 and joined the San Quentin Utilization of Inmate Resources Experiences and Studies group last year.
The giveaway was organized by Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an Oakland-based non-profit organization focused on organizing, restoring, and reunifying families and communities impacted by the criminal justice system.
“We’re literally giving back, healing our communities and healing ourselves, too,” said SQUIRES member Harold Meeks. He said it felt unreal for people in prison to have the opportunity to build bicycles for youth in the neighborhoods they came from and will return to.
The pouring rain on the afternoon the unassembled bicycles were delivered to the prison did not dampen the spirits of the crew.
“Beep, beep, beep,” sounded the two trucks backing up to the South Block rotunda. Their back doors opened to reveal boxes of kids’ bicycles stacked to the roofs. In just two hours, the SQUIRES team unloaded all 191 boxes, carted them into the unoccupied Carson section of the housing block, and stacked them 20 per cell.
The crew spent several days getting the bikes ready-to-ride for the children. Two-man teams worked on one bike at a time on folding tables they set up in the dayroom of the prison cell block. They unpacked each bike and all its parts from their box, and installed the pedals, handlebars, wheels, and seats. They adjusted the brakes and tightened the goosenecks. They installed training wheels on the smallest bikes, and even hung the sparkly handlebar tassels with care on the “Little Princess” bikes.
Accomplishing all that was a small miracle, considering that for security reasons, people in prison are not allowed to use tools. This project required support from prison administrators and staff, and a lot of faith.
“I love how they’re entrusting us to do this!” said Jared L. Hansen, as he was filling the assembled bikes’ tires with air. He said he enjoyed volunteering in the project because it was for a good cause. They were not just building bikes, they were building camaraderie.
This year’s giveaway was LSPC’s 25th annual Community Giveback event, now coordinated by their “All of Us or None” program, which was created by formerly incarcerated people in 2003. They distribute applications each year to residents of prisons and jails to sign up their children for the program.
Twenty-nine-year-old Navarro has been incarcerated for nine years. He missed out on giving his daughter, who is now 10 years old, her first bicycle and teaching her how to ride it.
“This is a perfect example of how we can make living amends,” said Navarro, tightening up a girl’s bicycle seat. “We took from our communities, and now we’re giving back to the same people we hurt. I want to let them know there’s people who care about them.”
“If I ever have any grandchildren, I hope to do this for them when I go back home. This is what being a father feels like,” he said.
Navarro credits the SQUIRES program with his growing understanding of the impact of crimes on communities and the value of intervention for youth whose lifestyles are leading toward incarceration.
For 60 years, SQUIRES has been mentoring at-risk-youth that come in to San Quentin to see and learn face-to-face the harsh reality of what their future holds if they don’t change their ways.
The SQUIRES team and their sponsor in the warden’s office, Rafaele Casale, thanked the people who made bringing this project inside The Q possible; Warden C. Andes, Lt. G. Berry, Lt. B. Haub, Lt. D. Campbell, Lt. Cornwell, Sgt. Brenes, Skyler Brown and the SQ Media Center, and Correctional Officers T. Marez, S. Lopez, Oldemeyer, J. Sibley, G. Vong, S. Dearmore, and J. Nguyen.
On Friday, Dec. 13, the team lined up the nearly 200 beautiful, brand-new bicycles on the West Block yard, ready to be picked up by LSPC and given to the children the next day.
“The kids are getting these bicycles, toys, and books, and it all came from y’all,” said LSPC Executive Director Paul Briley to the guys as they filled two trucks front-to-back, wall-to-wall with the bikes they assembled. They carefully stacked them three-high, with cardboard in between to prevent scratching.
Briley said each child will send a picture of themselves and their new bike with a letter to their incarcerated mother or father thanking them for the gift.
